It’s a summer like none before for Pluto. Usually her favourite season, filled with visits to the planetarium and hanging out at her mother’s restaurant on the boardwalk, this summer takes a turn for the worse. Pluto is suddenly inexplicably moody, either downright apathetic or experiencing surges of anger. Unable to get out of bed, she doesn’t understand why she no longer loves the things she used to. When one horrible day, her deteriorating mental health leads to her mother breaking down her bedroom door to prevent the worst, everything changes for Pluto. Freshly diagnosed with depression and anxiety, Pluto is utterly uprooted and finds herself resenting the easiness of her old life and incapable of going on as she has. With the help of an unexpected new friend, Pluto develops a checklist to get the old Pluto and her life back, only to realise that the old and new Pluto actually may be the very same…
What an utterly impressive novel! Melleby offers an intricately layered representation of how an adolescent experiences depression and anxiety, from the initial confusion and feeling of incapability to the highs of finding people who will be in your corner always, and creates a powerful narrative surrounding a young girl named Pluto, who, like the planet, goes through somewhat of an identity crisis when she is no longer what people associate with her existence.
At times, it was incredibly hard to stomach the deterioration of Pluto’s relationship with her mother. The two of them were the thickest of thieves until Pluto’s mental health plummeted and suddenly the relationship that used to be the easiest and most natural thing in the world turns fragile and fraught. Neither intends to hurt the other and yet it seems like the only outcome of so many conversations that turn into fights. Melleby here pulls no punches; she lets the reader feel everything Pluto feels. From her inability to articulate what she wants and needs to feeling caged in and yet not looked after enough, Pluto struggles with a lot and though moving in with her dad seems to be the lesser of two evils (because she believes that she will have more leeway with her mom far away), Pluto has to realise that there is no way out of her diagnosis; there is just the tough journey of figuring out how to live with her mind and try to accept her body and mind the way they are wired while also getting help and treatment.
Speaking of trying to accept the way she is, I also have to give kudos to the depiction of friendships in this novel. Pluto’s best friend, while having learned that Pluto is struggling with mental health issues, initially tries everything she can to include Pluto but when Pluto finds someone else that might be easier to spend time with because they didn’t know Pluto before her diagnosis (and thus can’t compare her to the ‘version’ she now believes herself to be unreclaimable), her best friend Meredith reacts by shutting her out. While this conflict is eventually resolved, I think it says a lot about mental health stigma and how not talking about it only renders it more insurmountable and often burns bridges that could be crossed with sympathy, an open ear, and education. Melleby brilliantly offers an authentic look on how we have the power to fight against stigma and how important education is, especially at young stages as well as while one is growing up.
Besides that, there is also a bit of a romance in the works for Pluto and I love the way Melleby writes female friendships turned into more. Pluto’s crush has their own battles to fight when it comes to situating themselves on the gender and sexuality spectrum and it was handled with care and attention to detail that made their and Pluto’s relationship blossoming all the more intriguing to follow.
Overall, I was enamoured with How to Become a Planet. It’s a raw and grating representation of how mental illnesses affects not only the person diagnosed with it but their relationships and their innate sense of self. It details both how new friendships (and crushes) as well as old ones can become the biggest lifeline or the hardest things to keep up with. While this is a novel marketed toward middle-graders, I believe that everyone can take something worthwhile from this book and I sincerely wish that this will someday be discussed in schools to fight mental health stigma.
Nuanced and honest to a fault, How to Become a Planet is an inspiring and educative story about how mental illness affects children and how peer and family acceptance can go a long way in fighting the isolation self-stigma often engenders.
How to Become a Planet is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of May 25th 2021.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
For Pluto, summer has always started with a trip to the planetarium. It’s the launch to her favorite season, which also includes visits to the boardwalk arcade, working in her mom’s pizzeria, and her best friend Meredith’s birthday party. But this summer, none of that feels possible.
A month before the end of the school year, Pluto’s frightened mom broke down Pluto’s bedroom door. What came next were doctor’s appointments, a diagnosis of depression, and a big black hole that still sits on Pluto’s chest, making it too hard to do anything.
Pluto can’t explain to her mom why she can’t do the things she used to love. And it isn’t until Pluto’s dad threatens to make her move with him to the city—where he believes his money, in particular, could help—that Pluto becomes desperate enough to do whatever it takes to be the old Pluto again.
She develops a plan and a checklist: If she takes her medication, if she goes to the planetarium with her mom for her birthday, if she successfully finishes her summer school work with her tutor, if she goes to Meredith’s birthday party . . . if she does all the things that “normal” Pluto would do, she can stay with her mom in Jersey. But it takes a new therapist, a new tutor, and a new (and cute) friend with a checklist and plan of her own for Pluto to learn that there is no old and new Pluto. There’s just her.
